| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Padre Ignacio by Owen Wister: As the little, ancient bronze bell continued swinging in the tower, its
plaintive call reached something in the Padre's memory. Softly, absently,
he began to sing. He took up the slow strain not quite correctly, and
dropped it, and took it up again, always in cadence with the bell.
[musical score appears here]
At length he heard himself, and, glancing at the belfry, smiled a little.
"It is a pretty tune," he said, "and it always made me sorry for poor Fra
Diavolo. Auber himself confessed to me that he had made it sad and put
the hermitage bell to go with it, because he too was grieved at having to
kill his villain, and wanted him, if possible, to die in a religious
frame of mind. And Auber touched glasses with me and said--how well I
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Arizona Nights by Stewart Edward White: in years, and myself. I did not greatly care.
After a while the light was blotted out. There followed a slight
pause. Then I knew that someone had flown to my side, and was
kneeling beside me and saying liquid, pitying things in Mexican.
I swallowed something hot and strong. In a moment I came back
from wherever I was drifting, to look up at a Mexican girl about
twenty years old.
She was no great matter in looks, but she seemed like an angel to
me then. And she had sense. No questions, no nothing. Just
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain: His cook or his butler would have said, 'Like the flag-officer done.'
You hear gentlemen say, 'Where have you been at?' And here is
the aggravated form--heard a ragged street Arab say it to a comrade:
'I was a-ask'n' Tom whah you was a-sett'n' at.' The very elect
carelessly say 'will' when they mean 'shall'; and many of them say,
'I didn't go to do it,' meaning 'I didn't mean to do it.'
The Northern word 'guess'--imported from England, where it
used to be common, and now regarded by satirical Englishmen
as a Yankee original--is but little used among Southerners.
They say 'reckon.' They haven't any 'doesn't' in their language;
they say 'don't' instead. The unpolished often use 'went' for 'gone.'
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